


The Coming Choice

by Amy R (Brightknightie)



Category: Forever Knight
Genre: Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-02
Updated: 2003-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brightknightie/pseuds/Amy%20R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janette contemplates the choice the Code will demand of her when Nick regains his humanity.   (Poem: 5 pentameter sestets, rhymed.)<br/>      <em>"Kill him. Convert him. Or make him forget."</em><br/><span class="small">(Original: August 2003.)</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Coming Choice

Kill him. Convert him. Or make him forget.  
The Code will enforce this choice on Janette  
the night Nick regains his humanity.  
Sometimes, deep in her soon-empty goblet,  
apart from the crowd with her cigarette,  
she ponders that eventuality.  
Kill him? Lacroix would have done so, doubtless.  
Lacroix would have preferred his Nicholas  
dead in his grasp rather than living free.  
But though she deals death without regret,  
this is Nicolas. No urge in Janette  
could cap her knight's quest with such tragedy.

Convert him? No plan would please her better.  
To build anew with her fair Crusader  
what might have been with no Lacroix between.  
But that chance is lost, and she knows his views.  
Rather than return to her, he would choose  
to die human; she could not intervene.

Or make him forget? Such a lonely thought.  
She imagines erasing times they fought,  
laughed, touched, cried, or sat quietly content.  
She pictures how their life seen through his eyes,  
her heart as held in his hands, would comprise  
old wallpaper stripped for a new tenant.

Someday, he will become mortal, knowing  
more than mortals may. Forbidden to cling,  
she must choose somehow to silence his voice.  
So when days find her too deeply drinking,  
it's because she knows that choice is coming —  
not that she would really call it a choice.

 

  
**— End —**   


**Author's Note:**

>  **Disclaimers.** Parriot and Cohen created  Forever Knight; Sony owns it. I intend no infringement. All characters and situations are of course entirely fictional.
> 
>  **Citations.**   _Enforcers and Code:_ The episode "Unreality TV" introduces the concept of the relentless vampiric Code, the sole purpose of which is to protect the secret of vampire existence from humans. The Enforcers, those who compel the silence the Code demands, appear on screen only in "Unreality TV," though "The Fix" also obliquely references them.  _Lacroix's Death:_ Nick kills Lacroix in "Dark Knight," the premiere. Janette learns of Lacroix's death from Nick in "False Witness." The past-tense references to Lacroix (lines 7-9) therefore set this poem between that revelation in "False Witness" and Lacroix's unexplained return in "Killer Instinct" two years later. Additionally, Janette smokes (line 5) only in first season (cf. "At least I know it won't kill me" in "Dark Knight").  _The Choice:_ The idea that people may choose to die human rather than return as vampires when bitten (lines 16-18) belongs to the episode "Near Death," as does Janette's remark: "if you call death a choice" (line 30).  _Nick's Name:_ "Nicholas" is English, as Lacroix pronounces it. "Nicolas" is French, as Janette pronounces it.  _Prosody:_ For those interested in mechanics: the poem is five pentameter sestets, rhymed aabccb.
> 
>  **Credits.** My thanks go to Leela for generously reviewing this poem's draft, and directing the deletion of a superfluous stanza. She further strongly advised a title change, which I did not, at the last, implement. My thanks go also to Abby (TV-Elf) and Shelley for their opinions on the title issue.
> 
>  **Thank you for reading.** Constructive criticism is welcome. Let me know what you think?


End file.
